Second coming
Cygnet’s decent Man from Nebraska: There’s no place like home, even if home is Lincoln
If playwright Tracy Letts wants a new title for his Man from Nebraska, Cygnet Theatre Company’s current entry, he might consider “A Poor Man’s The Wizard of Oz.” Like fellow Midwesterner Dorothy Gale, Letts’ Ken Carpenter sets out on a journey of self-discovery, only to find that a key to his fulfillment was in front of him all along. But whereas Dorothy’s exuberance oozes out her ears, Ken is facing a crisis of faith. Family, work, country, God, probably even wretched little Toto: This impossibly bland insurance man has lost belief in the values that sustained him his 57 years. His Yellow Brick Road unfolds under Lincoln itself, with rough-and-tumble London taking root over Oz and its magical charms.
Eye-openers like Ken’s are common in many people’s lives, so if performance art is to address them interestingly, it’s gotta do it with innovation and flair. Wizard had Technicolor and a crazy ol’ wicked witch. Man from Nebraska has thrifty language, excellent performances by Monique Gaffney and Robin Christ and, above all, some topnotch tech work. This is a decent take on personal inventory, effective not so much for what it says as for the way it says it.
It’s telling, for example, that Ken’s wife Nancy (Christ) tends to Ken’s dying mother Cammie (Sandra Ellis-Troy) as Ken (Michael Rich Sears) looks on haplessly—such is the extent of sonny’s ineptitude, which follows him to London. He’d probably heard about the easy sex and drugs amid his military service there, and this time, he proceeds to live the dream, however haltingly. Cammie’s death makes short work of his fun as he returns home, where he’s met by his holier-than-thou daughter Ashley (Amanda Sitton in a terribly underwritten role).
I won’t give away the ending (in which Christ positively shines), except to say it doesn’t quite make sense. The London experience isn’t lost on Ken, who entertains making up for lost time with another trip—yet director Francis Gercke has Sears play Ken much the same at the climax as at the beginning (watch Ken fall to all fours and whimper at the totality of his life, just like at the outset). Hardly the mark of a man who might want more of the road, especially after his encounters with sassy London bartender Tamyra (Gaffney), who mixes the meanest salty dogs this side of Vienna.
But Gercke’s also smart enough to let the aura set the pace. There must be two lines of dialogue in the first five minutes; Gercke thus leaves us to our own devices as we take in the unfettered dowdiness of the Carpenters in particular and Nebraska life in general. There’s a nice economy to that approach, just like with Eric Lotze’s darkish and character-specific lights.
I didn’t mean what I said about Toto before. She was actually a cute little thing; sadly, the only structure in her memory is the Ventura Freeway, built over her burial plot. Once again, change is life’s only constant—and with Man from Nebraska, Cygnet has mounted an efficient work to that effect, in the person of an Everyman who exceeds his limits in order to determine them.
This review is based on the matinee performance of Oct. 10. Man from Nebraska runs through Nov. 1 at Cygnet Theatre, 4040 Twiggs St. in Old Town. $17-$42. www.cygnettheatre.com. Write to marty@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.
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